Strapping In For The Fight

Yesterday, we covered the Prop 8 arguments in front of the Supreme Court, and today the Court is tackling the other major same- sex marriage issue in front of it this term - the Defense of Marriage Act, also known as DOMA.

It was clear from the way the Justices of the Supreme Court handled the arguments in the Prop 8 case on Tuesday that they do not really want to judge the Prop 8 case on its merits. Rather, it appears the Court may want to simply dodge the Prop 8 case, by insisting those who brought the case to the Court don't have standing. If SCOTUS - shorthand for the Supreme Court Of The United States - refuses to decide the case based on lack of standing, the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court will stand, making Prop 8 unconstitutional and making same sex marriage 100% legal, but just in California.

If, as most SCOTUS watchers agree, the court evades a real decision on making same sex marriage legal in all states, there is virtually no chance of SCOTUS dodging the question of constitutionality on DOMA, which faces them today.

In short, those on the political right who have pushed the DOMA case before the Supreme Court have strapped themselves to this issue, in the same way terrorists strap themselves to bombs. Neither idea is likely to be productive, in our estimation.

The difference between the DOMA case and the Prop 8 case is clear in the recap from Wonkblog's Dylan Matthews, and aligns itself clearly with our long-standing focus on civil marriage as a type of umbrella contract that handles multiple facets of what is legally covered under the term marriage.

Taxes - which clearly fall under the jurisdiction of the state - are always a big deal, and the ongoing battle over estate taxes is one of the biggest focal points of the tax battle.

The DOMA case - which is actually United States vs. Windsor - concerns a same-sex, dual-citizenship couple, married in Canada after a forty-year courtship. Unfortunately, Edith Windsor's spouse died, and Ms. Windsor was forced to pay $363,053 in estate tax on her dead wife's estate, a burden she would not have had to bear if the Federal Defense of Marriage Act were not in force.

The Obama Administration itself does not believe in DOMA, and even President Clinton, who signed DOMA into law in 1996, no longer believes that DOMA is constitutional. Effectively, there may not have been anyone with standing defending the bigoted pro-DOMA opinion from the right, but - thanks to extremists on the political right - the task of carrying the anti-equality banner fell to John Boehner, which he reassigned to the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group.

In the end, we frankly don't see how DOMA can remain.

Even many conservatives and libertarians, who come at DOMA from their own conservative viewpoint, see DOMA as unconstitutional - not because it denies the rights of the marriage contract to those legally entitled to it, but because they consider the Federal government telling the states how they must handle marriage to be an abuse of Federal power.

No matter how the Supreme Court decides either case, as we noted on Tuesday, the numbers simply don't support continuing legal policies that give gay and lesbian Americans second-class citizenship.

We are one nation, where separate but equal has already been found to be legally indefensible with race. It's no more defensible with sexual orientation.

Separate but equal isn't equal. In a society that believes in equality under the law, it's time both DOMA and Prop 8 were struck down, for good.

Institutions In Ruin

Every institution of American life goes through its ups and downs, from being trusted to being reviled, and usually back again.

It's happened with banks and corporate Wall Street firms, who are currently far more hated than trusted by most Americans. It's happened with the idea of universal background checks for guns - at one time, a suggestion of the NRA's creation, now an idea that 91% of Americans support. In fact, this pattern of institutional collapse and regrowth happens so often, media personality and scholar Chris Hayes wrote a whole book about it.

We're hoping this week that the nine justices of the Supreme Court don't join that long list of ruined institutions in the course of adjudicating two civil rights cases involving another institution - marriage.

As we've stated for years, when we talk about marriage we generally mean "civil marriage," the type of contract that non-religious governments around the world acknowledge between any two qualified adults, many without regard to the sexual orientation of the two parties signing the contract.

That word "contract" is really the key, as - at its most basic level - both the Prop 8 and DOMA cases are the Supreme Court hearing two arguments about contract law. That's not exactly the story of cataclysmic ruin you might hear grousing about at the local diner or watering hole.

From the highly biased screed of knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnons at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, to the mewling of certain Republican politicians desperate for extremist attention from the media, while it's no longer a majority, there are still significant numbers of Americans who think allowing same sex marriage will somehow ruin the institution of marriage.

Thankfully, from NFL players to Karl Rove, that attitude is changing, as opposition to same sex marriage is rapidly wanes. From Republicans like Sen. Rob Portman, to Democrats like Sen. Mark Warner, public opinion on same sex marriage is shifting quickly in favor of tolerance. As a recent CNN/ORC survey notes, as more people acknowledge that they know and care about someone who is gay or lesbian, their tolerance and understanding of LGBT issues rises.

If we are all lucky, this list of more tolerant, sensible people might even include Chief Justice John Roberts soon. Robert's cousin, an out lesbian, will be present in the Court for both arguments over same sex marriage this week.

With all the numbers pointing towards a change in attitude from Americans towards legalizing same sex marriage, we still feel it's important to note: The Supreme Court does not pay attention to the popularity contests of American politics, nor should they.

Whether or not America likes the institution of the Supreme Court (they don't, currently), or whether Americans, as a whole, believe same sex marriage should be legal (a majority do), should not have much impact on the decisions by the Court on these two issues.

What should make a difference is what the law says.

Hopefully, the nine justices will renew our faith in the institution of the Supreme Court this week.

Trashing The Truth

It's very definitely been a bit of an ugly few days in the media.

For us, we began to notice something was wrong as we came back from a great weekend filled with great performances and great friends. First, light snow began to fall in both the midwest and DC regions - rarely a good sign in March.

Then we noticed a story from well-known author and generally respected journalist Greg Mitchell, originally commissioned by the Washington Post. Mitchell's piece of commentary was ultimately not printed by the Post, yet that omission by The Post's editors is actually a tacit example of what's wrong in our American media today.

Judged by their actions, most corporate media organizations don't really want to feed you the truth anymore. They'd rather toss out the truth in the trash, while feeding Americans fast food for the mind.

As Mitchell recounts on his own blog post, he was hired to write a story last week for The Washington Post, covering the failures of the media surrounding Iraq. When Mitchell submitted his piece, it was rejected, and in it's place, the Post used a piece that effectively absolved them of any role in advocating for the war in Iraq a decade ago.

Last week, none of the major media organizations solidly covered their own failures ten years ago in the run-up to the failure in Iraq. A few touched on it, at least one strongly - but almost no one seriously addressed their own failures - and why should they?

After all, so many are still getting away with misreporting or omitting the facts.

Just look at the dreck we gathered up from this weekend's headlines. One headline over the weekend in The Hill - supposedly the media organization of note on on Capitol Hill - - read "NRA gains upper hand on Obama." It didn't seem to matter to the writers at The Hill that everyone from CNN, to the New York Times, to Mother Jones (who broke the story on Romney's 47% comments last year) were carrying stories detailing how multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg is, in fact, committing millions to push gun safety legislation through Congress over the wishes of the NRA, as we detailed last week. Further, Bloomberg appears to be actually targeting pro-NRA politicians in swing states for the elections in 2014.

In what way does that give the NRA the upper hand over President Obama? It doesn't, except for - apparently - in the minds of the writers on-duty over the weekend at The Hill.

We're not even going to go into how many organizations jumped the gun Sunday night saying that Syrian President Assad had been killed.

With headlines and stories offering misleading and sometimes outright fictitious perspectives on national and world events from so many so-called "news" agencies, it's no wonder so many Americans are confused, angry, and turning away from news.

It doesn't help that even the annual "State of the Media" report from the supposedly unbiased Pew Center presented a completely biased falsehood as truth right at the top of this year's report - namely that opinionated news media isn't honest, and can’t be supported by facts.

We understand that being a part of the corporate-owned news-based media today involves selling catchy ideas to advertisers, which often aren’t bland, boring, pure facts. We just didn't think the corporate media had completely sold out the truth.

Obviously, in far too many cases today, we’re wrong, and the truth is ending up in the trash.